First Draft

From 2019 until the end of 2022, CMT was the proud home of First Draft – a global information verification unit whose work has informed journalism for 7 years. 

On 14 June 2022, First Draft ceased its activities, transferring its knowledge and expertise to the newly launched Information Futures Lab at Brown University in the United States.

As First Draft’s founder Claire Wardle has noted, the organisation 'began in 2015 as a small nonprofit coalition that sprung out of a need: to understand, verify, and provide guidance on the misinformation we all were seeing on the social web. In 2022, the problems we’re all facing have only grown.'

The Centre for Media Transition is grateful to our many colleagues who have contributed to First Drafts work, as well to all the funders who invested in its mission with a view to lessening the many harms that come from misinformation.

Meanwhile, the hard work of the First Draft team remains. All of its curated resources will remain in the public domain. Indeed, you can access them here.

Along with these resources, take a look at the Discussion paper Discussion Paper on an Australian Voluntary Code of Practice for Disinformation produced by CMT in collaboration with First Draft.